115
115
Dec 6, 2012
12/12
by
MSNBC
tv
eye 115
favorite 0
quote 0
well, with 25 days to go until the year-end fiscal cliff deadline, president obama and speaker boehner spoke on the phone yesterday for the first time in days. both men agreed not to publicly characterize how the conversation went. but the stalemate in negotiations entered new territory yesterday with treasury secretary tim geithner suggesting the white house is ready to go off the cliff if republicans refuse to raise taxes on the 2%. >> if republicans do not agree to that, is the administration prepared to go over the fiscal cliff? >> oh, absolutely. again, there's no prospect to an agreement that doesn't involve those rates going up on the top 2% of the wealthiest americans -- remember, it's only 2%. the size of the problem in some sense is so large, it can't be solved without rates going up as part of that. again, i think there's broad recognition of that reality now. >> one fallback option republicans are reportedly considering is to accept tax cuts for the middle class, allow rates to go up for the wealthiest, and then start the fight over again during debt limit talks early next
well, with 25 days to go until the year-end fiscal cliff deadline, president obama and speaker boehner spoke on the phone yesterday for the first time in days. both men agreed not to publicly characterize how the conversation went. but the stalemate in negotiations entered new territory yesterday with treasury secretary tim geithner suggesting the white house is ready to go off the cliff if republicans refuse to raise taxes on the 2%. >> if republicans do not agree to that, is the...
283
283
Dec 5, 2012
12/12
by
MSNBCW
tv
eye 283
favorite 0
quote 0
the obama plan has half from tax increases versus about 20% in the boehner plan. these are philosophical differences. boehner would cut much more. obama's view is we've cut so much from that already we have to be careful how much more we cut. >> when you talk about discretionary spending cuts, a big difference between defense cuts and domestic cuts. does it go after defense spending the way he has? >> he hasn't spelled it out yet. we don't know. r&d, a lot of investment programs we think we need to keep this economy growing. >> can i ask a question? what makes up the difference between the bowles-simpson proposals and the other ones? why is that so much higher? what are they leaving out? >> there were more tax increases. it was light on entitlements. >> okay. >> where did bowles-simpson get the revenue. >> they eliminated a whole slaw and lowering rates and also a tax on gasoline. >> they let the bush tax cuts expire, right? >> initially they did and then were going to do tax reform. >> would they increase the taxes on the rich? >> yeah. >> they would? >> yes. >>
the obama plan has half from tax increases versus about 20% in the boehner plan. these are philosophical differences. boehner would cut much more. obama's view is we've cut so much from that already we have to be careful how much more we cut. >> when you talk about discretionary spending cuts, a big difference between defense cuts and domestic cuts. does it go after defense spending the way he has? >> he hasn't spelled it out yet. we don't know. r&d, a lot of investment programs...
201
201
Nov 29, 2012
11/12
by
MSNBCW
tv
eye 201
favorite 0
quote 0
i'm wondering if john boehner and barack obama got together, had their short conversation and say hey, why don't we characterize this as a curt, short, curt conversation. that will help you with your people. that will help -- didn't you love that? you know, we hear they talked, and they had a curt conversation. >> reporter: yeah. there is truth to that. >> exactly what both sides wanted to hear. >> reporter: no, there is truth to that. look, the white house is well aware that they can't -- you know, the one reason why there's not meetings here? that's bad for boehner. boehner can't be seen here on, quote, enemy territory cutting the deal. right? it has -- i mean, look. the semantics matter. you hate to admit that it does, but it does. and the settings matter. that's why you're not seeing a lot of meetings here. >> it does and there are a lot of republicans -- remember newt gingrich going over to the white house through the budget negotiations in the 1990s, and newt gingrich's own words getting his pockets picked by bill clinton. outnegotiated time and time again. so these things do ma
i'm wondering if john boehner and barack obama got together, had their short conversation and say hey, why don't we characterize this as a curt, short, curt conversation. that will help you with your people. that will help -- didn't you love that? you know, we hear they talked, and they had a curt conversation. >> reporter: yeah. there is truth to that. >> exactly what both sides wanted to hear. >> reporter: no, there is truth to that. look, the white house is well aware that...
204
204
Dec 3, 2012
12/12
by
MSNBCW
tv
eye 204
favorite 0
quote 0
what's fascinating is boehner is in exactly the same position that obama was in the lame-duck session in 2010. where a lot of the left was like when they were talking about extending the bush tax cuts. a lot of the left was saying -- even some centrist democrats were mad at the president because he was going to make that compromised deal. they were saying republicans won the election. and if we don't do this deal now, we're going to get a worse deal in january or february. that's the reality. we don't like this deal, but it will be worse for us two months from now. do you guys see that? there's no end game that's better for you, left. and in the end, the left, with the help of clinton convincing making that case, too, the democratic left backed down. president obama made that deal. boehner is going to be making a similar argument internally in his caucus now, which is just the reality of i get what you ran on, and i get that your politics are anti-tax, but if we don't make this deal today, it's going to be worse in january or february from your point of view. we're going to get a wors
what's fascinating is boehner is in exactly the same position that obama was in the lame-duck session in 2010. where a lot of the left was like when they were talking about extending the bush tax cuts. a lot of the left was saying -- even some centrist democrats were mad at the president because he was going to make that compromised deal. they were saying republicans won the election. and if we don't do this deal now, we're going to get a worse deal in january or february. that's the reality....
228
228
Nov 30, 2012
11/12
by
MSNBCW
tv
eye 228
favorite 0
quote 0
victories off of obama's first offering. now, obama today can go to his caucus and say, look, i tried to get everything i could get. >> we've got to give. >> and we've got to give. and i think this actually is much more important in terms of setting the frameworks for each of the partisans to say okay, we did what we could. now let's start moving. >> and to save face. >> mark halperin. >> clearly one of the things the white house offer is intended to do is to smoke out republicans. one of the things the president's most frustrated about and feels he's got a really strong hand on, republicans cannot make up the loss of the tax revenue, or if they want to lower the amount of new tax revenue with spending cuts that are the least bit popular. if they want more entitlement cuts, more discretionary spending cuts, if they want pentagon cuts, the president wants them to specify them. and this offer is intended in part to say here's my math. here's the level of deficit reduction i can reach. if you think you can reach the same or mor
victories off of obama's first offering. now, obama today can go to his caucus and say, look, i tried to get everything i could get. >> we've got to give. >> and we've got to give. and i think this actually is much more important in terms of setting the frameworks for each of the partisans to say okay, we did what we could. now let's start moving. >> and to save face. >> mark halperin. >> clearly one of the things the white house offer is intended to do is to smoke...
243
243
Dec 7, 2012
12/12
by
MSNBCW
tv
eye 243
favorite 0
quote 0
president obama and speaker boehner. nobody else. with 24 days before a year-end deadline, "the new york times" says boehner made the request to clear the negotiation room going forward, leaving it up to himself and the president to reach a deal to avoid automatic tax hikes and deep spending cuts. and while the two men may be negotiating privately, yesterday the president took his message to the public, visiting a local virginia family as a part of his my2k social media campaign, sitting around the kitchen table. he told the family he was optimistic. >> the message that i think we all want to send to members of congress is, this is a solvable problem. the senate has already passed a bill that would make sure the middle-class taxes don't go up next year by a single dime. just to be clear, i'm not going to sign any package that somehow prevents the top rate from going up for folks at the top 2%. but i do remain optimistic that we can get something done that is good for families like this one and that is good for the american economy. >
president obama and speaker boehner. nobody else. with 24 days before a year-end deadline, "the new york times" says boehner made the request to clear the negotiation room going forward, leaving it up to himself and the president to reach a deal to avoid automatic tax hikes and deep spending cuts. and while the two men may be negotiating privately, yesterday the president took his message to the public, visiting a local virginia family as a part of his my2k social media campaign,...